Gas-stirred ladles

Gas stirring in a ladle is of one the basic processes of a steelmaking meltshop. It serves to homogenise the composition and temperature of the metal bath. Furthermore, it serves to remove inclusions from the metal bath. CFD modelling of steelmaking ladles is a part of the doctoral thesis project of E. Ramasetti. His work is concerned on improving the efficiency of alloying in ladle metallurgy.

Highlights

• An Eulerian volume of fluid model was set up to model open eye formation in a 1:5 scale physical model of a 150 ton ladle. The physical model was set up on the basis of dynamic, kinematic and geometric similarity. The predicted open eye area was found to be in close agreement with the observed open eye area.
• An Eulerian volume of fluid model was set up to model open eye formation in a 150 ton ladle. The predicted open eye area agreed well with the open eye area measured using an IR camera.
  

Selected publications

• N. Alia, M. Pylvänäinen, V.-V. Visuri, V. John, and S. Ollila, "Vibrations of a laboratory-scale gas-stirred ladle with two eccentric nozzles and multiple sensors", Journal of Iron and Steel Research International, vol. 26, no. 10, pp. 1031–1040, 2019
• E. K. Ramasetti, V.-V. Visuri, P. Sulasalmi, T. Fabritius, J. Savolainen, M. Li, and L. Shao: Numerical Modelling of the Influence of Argon Flow Rate and Slag Layer Height on Open-Eye Formation in a 150 Ton Steelmaking Ladle. Metals, vol. 9, no. 9, 2019. 1048.
• E. K. Ramasetti, V.-V. Visuri, P. Sulasalmi, T. Palovaara, A. K. Gupta, and T. Fabritius, “Physical and CFD Modelling of the Effect of Top Layer Properties on the Formation of Open-eye in Gas-stirred Ladles with Single and Dual-plugs,” Steel Research International, vol. 90, no. 80, 2019. 1900088
• E. K. Ramasetti, V.-V. Visuri, P. Sulasalmi, R. Mattila, and T. Fabritius, "Modelling of the Effect of the Gas Flow Rate on the Fluid Flow and Open-Eye Formation in a Water Model of a Steelmaking Ladle", Steel Research International, vol. 90, no. 2, article 1800365, 2019.
• T. Palovaara, V.-V. Visuri, and T. Fabritius, "Physical modelling of gas injection in a ladle", Proceedings of the 7th International Congress on Science and Technology of Steelmaking, Associazione Italiana di Metallurgia, Venice, Italy, no. 55, 2018.

Theses instructed

• E. Ramasetti, “Modelling of Open-eye Formation and Mixing Phenomena in a Gas-stirred Ladle for Different Operating Parameters", Doctoral thesis, Doctoral thesis, University of Oulu, 2019
• T. Palovaara, “Physical Modelling of Gas Injection in a Ladle”, Master's thesis, 2017.